Welcome Center
Sitemap ' --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- -- ' Welcome Center - a BS1 Map Expansion ' ' --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- -- ''' '''Welcome Center - First visited level of BS1 (besides the Lighthouse/Crashsite). Another Level Map set, expanded for the MMORPG to its full extent (not only what we are allowed to see in the Solo BS1 game). The much larger interior spaces and facilities include functions that should have been present (to be an integral part of the City), and which give the MMORPG Players more to interact with/explore. * See Also Kashmir Incident ---- Revised Level Maps : (Click To Enlarge) - --- --- --- Welcome to Rapture (Sorry If You Don't Like It, You Cannot Leave) : "Formerly, the Welcome Center complex was designed to acclimate newcomers to Rapture..." If people cannot leave once they get to Rapture, isn't it a bit late for them by the time they get to see the 'Welcome Center" ??? ( Maybe they were brought the whole way with blindfolds on so that they couldn't figure out where they were ???) Better things to have awaiting new arrivals might have been : advertisements for apartments, business opportunities and investments, Job application bulletin boards, a Bank branch office, Kiosk with a map of City ('You are Here'...), etc... --- --- --- Map orientation was determined from the direction a Bathysphere would have come from the Lighthouse. The Lighthouse's facing and Bathysphere's initial facing can be told by the moon which is to the right side of the entry door (and in a far northern latitude the moon will be closer to the horizon towards the South) - so inwards on that door and the Bathysphere inside face Northerly. The window closes so we can't see if the Bathysphere turns at all before emerging onto the seabed far below. Then down into the city buildings it twists and turns a few times, apparently doing its final approach from the West. There are buildings on the Welcome Center map that block many water approaches (but nothing says a Bathysphere tube can't tunnel thru a building). The whole side of the Transit building was shown open as we approached it (the right side of the Bathysphere Station building is the only one clear/open). Looking at the Bathysphere map : The position of Welcome Center would be East of the Lighthouse (and we make an S curve path coming out of the Lighthouse's descent shaft, out of a wall of rock at edge of the City). So North is down on the maps for this level. The floor levels of this map are a bit separated from one another in height (some intervening floors would likely exist which have not been included, as well as lower floors below level 0 seen from the Bathysphere as you initially approach the dock). Included are the floors seen which the central elevators obviously connect to (even if we can't get to them). Level_1 is quite a ways above Level_0 where the Bathysphere Station Dock is, and even much of the rest of that level is a bit higher -- the stairway we go up into the Visitor Lounge/Plasmid Parlor AND then up the stairway in there to get to our first Gatherers Garden/ADAM. (The map there is a bit distorted and doesn't properly show that balcony level correctly as I didn't feel it warranted a whole separate map just for that). --- Usual level issues to fix : * Initial view arriving shows building far too high above the seabed. There is no reason that foundations or the buildings have to be that tall (the brief initial cityscape view is just shown to be impressive). That height would be reduced greatly to bring lower floors much closer to the seabed level, where 'Street' structures and (BS2 added) Atlantic Express tracks would run. We see seabed/rocks outside of windows, so the rest can be much further below (and not 100s of feet as some of the views indicate). * Paper thin walls - corrected in a few places (zero thickness really doesn't work structurally) * Adjacent buildings are 1/2 size caricatures (their number of floors/windows would be reduced significantly in MMORPG), also some of the building are far too tall. These other buildings, even when enlarged, are not too big (compare them to the main extent of the building that we traverse.) * Parts of adjacent buildings in the Medical Pavilion (the next game level map set) can be seen. The Security Airlock leading to Medical Pavilion has been shifted a little to prevent the buildings of that complex from directly colliding/overlapping spatially with those on this (Welcome Center) level map (and even then there is still a shared wall with part of the main 'Kashmir' building in Welcome Center). * Rocks seen up on the (actual) 6th floor outside the windows (done for visual effect in BS1). May have have to employ the 'ornamental rock garden' excuse again for some of them. * The tossed together huge masses of rocks wedged up amongst the buildings, when an adjacent building side drops down quite far (Real World it just doesn't work like that, rocks erode and the seabed is more evenly leveled). Most of the depth of building below would be discarded for the MMORPG (it is a waste of concrete). * More than one window looking out on a open Skybox view, when for the same area seen from a different viewpoint (another window) there is a building at that location. In the MMORPG every outside view will be of real in-game accessible buildings/seascape. * Missing room from the in-game map - kitchen in Kashmir Club - added * The mismatch on the ceiling window positioning of the Entryway Bathysphere Dock (just sloppy). * The same Skybox (background) picture is repeated twice (180 degrees apart) so it has to be taken only as 'clues' about the number/placement of building in the general area, rather than being any exact representation. --- --- --- Additions : For a transit Hub, the original Welcome Center didn't have alot of alternate paths linking it into the rest of Rapture. Being a reception/arrival area would only be the first function for it (upto 1952), and its connections should be many more than what we saw on the original game Level map. I've added many more Metro Bathysphere routes. (Even after immigration stopped, it continued as a major city center and transportation hub). We can see a number of Viaducts connecting various buildings in the area (being the equivalent of sidewalks). I added more Viaduct portals to other nearby buildings in logical places. Various product/service showcases, orientation and institutional introduction offices are arrayed in this area, easily accessible to new immigrants. Only 2 (Bathysphere) dock/holes in the Welcome Center Metro Station ??? With 8-10 people per full load (less if you pay extra for First-Class), that is not a great traffic capacity (even with a cycle time of once every couple of minutes) for a fairly busy section of the City. (This is more evidence of the city requiring a transport system with greater capacity AND with more reasonable fares -- that being the Trolley system I elaborate on elsewhere). On this map, there are now additional Metro Bathysphere Stations located in this cluster of buildings (added within easy walking distance of each other). That one in Medical Pavilion is for Emergency Services (ambulance), but since Fontaine/Atlas steers you to to it, maybe all the others are wrecked or too well guarded. Significant connections to Rapture's Metro Trolley system (not shown) would be a less-expensive convenient transport for most/the-majority of Rapture's people. Welcome Center would most certainly also have had an Atlantic Express Station (also down near 'Street'/seabed level) and it would likewise be at the convergence of several AE routes (an important major station). The central elevator complex could easily further descend to that level. The large waiting area at the Lighthouse-Route Bathysphere Station would be due to it being the primary disembarkation site for the majority of Rapture's immigrants (done with by the time of the 1958 Kashmir Massacre/1960 BS1). Numerous orientation services and tours would previously be offered to recently arrived citizens, as well as last minute/finalized paperwork/arrangements (official City offices). I've added a connection to the indicated "Hotel Monsenor" that could be utilized by new immigrants, until they got their new residences arranged (it was also one of the first building completed to house construction personnel, thus its proximity to the first Bathysphere route). Added, a Neptune's Bounty Bathysphere Station (a much more 'no frills' design appropriate for people going to an industrial/commercial district). Added Arcadia, Fort Frolic and Olympus Heights Bathysphere Route Stations linked into the 'Transit Hub'. Those routes also lead to other major Bathysphere hubs connecting to many other places in Rapture. New immigrants would have tours arranged for them to show them the sights and parts of the City they specifically would be interested in. The water shafts (part of the Bathysphere airlocks) that descend to some sideways openings below the lower map level can be seen going thru some of the buildings. The Kashmir Restaurant which we are shown on the Solo game (BS1) level map is only a small part of the whole establishment (its too small for the way the Novel describes it, or for it to play its part in the Kashmir Incident). Ive designated those existing (BS1 Map) areas as a 'Lounge' and 'Club', and have made connections to the now incorporated (larger) Kashmir's establishment floorplan (which we saw used in the Multi-Player map). Those central 'Elevators' (the big open atrium) also go down to the 'Street' level (not shown), where there are large 'transit hubs' for the Metro Trolley system, and to Welcome Center's original Mk1 and Mk2 Atlantic Express Stations (the original, post-abandonment, was converted to a Submarine Dock, and the Mk2 AE became an all Freight operation). This Elevator atrium section has 5 stories (seems like there should be more, but this area has fairly high ceilings and the usual thick structural floors needed to reinforce the building's walls). Added a Transit Mall, a set of shops for the 'Transit Hub', which would be various things like newsstands, coffee shop, sandwich/pizza/hotdog place, bar, etc... A second Mall level including Kashmir's Eat-n-Dash for the upscale commuters. I've added, a convenient Elevator in the Transit Hub which connects the levels and also extends down to the Trolley/Atlantic Express level -- to facilitate the inevitable passenger transfers between the various transportation systems. The (new) Fort Frolic Bathysphere Station now indicates it is decorated with Sander Cohen 'Art' (the original stuff, not the plaster covered corpses) and has a viewing Balcony that waiting commuters could sit down and enjoy their coffee/sandwiches. Various advertisements and announcements for Fleet Hall and other Cohen show venues would be located here. Actually, each of the Route Stations would have some special decorations related to its destination. Multiple Maintenance Airlocks seen on other maps would be on a lower level (basement and foundation level not shown on this map set.) --- A Bathysphere's hull is at least an inch thickness of steel (to handle water pressure at Rapture's depth). That Splicer who tried to cut it open when you first arrive wasn't quite insane enough to keep trying despite it being impossible. Activating the Door Emergency Open switch on the outside might have been more productive (but then you (the Player) would then probably be dead before the story really began). It might have been even more scary for that to have happened, but with the Security Flybot showing up to "save the day" seconds before you were disemboweled . The Rapture Book (Novel) mentions repairs to the cable system for lowering the Bathysphere down from the Lighthouse, and I have previously decided in MY design that most Rapture 'Bathyspheres' (that word actually IS defined as a cable driven system, versus a Submarine/'Bathyscaphe' which ARE self-powered and free-floating) work on drag-cables for their ordinary propulsion between stations (like 'Cable-Cars'). A cable is much more reliable than a self piloting vehicle (especially for something that is to be used as public transit - particularly by the more affluent folk) -- the system is actually a double cable for added reliability. The discrepancy between the arrival animation (invisible cable) and whats mentioned in the Novel would be resolved. (Various game concept art SHOWED 'Bathyspheres' on cables.) --- In the Welcome Center cluster of buildings, there is the Rapture Tower Hotel, which (I arbitrarily declare) is the tallest building in Rapture. It is 40 stories tall (~600 feet), taller than Prometheus Tower which seems as high because its base rests at a higher seabed elevation). The Rapture Tower Hotel is a large cylindrical building (about 200ft wide), which should have been a more common design in Rapture, due to that shape's structural advantages. Also, Art Deco style often incorporated curves as part of its style (more than a few of the early concept diagrams had curved buildings). The Rapture Tower Hotel building would have a significant number of commercial office suites, as well as the Hotel and Apartments. One hopes the elevators didn't have any transdimensional issues Disneyland_reference to that Haunted Mansion elevator. The Top of the Rapture Tower Hotel is within 100 feet of the surface of the Ocean, but on the 'downstream' side of the highpoints of Mount Ryan (the undersea volcano which Rapture is built upon), so it is not imperiled by Icebergs coming down thru the Denmark Strait. At the top, there was a Tourist attraction of a tethered observation chamber which floated up and broke the surface so that the paying passengers could see the sky (The North Atlantic is pretty bleak most of the year, so Ryan wouldn't mind Rapturites having a glimpse of that)... Note - Many of the building seen in the Skybox window views are a distortion/caricature (done for effect in the game), and would usually be less than half the presented tallness, in floors (and height). --- Added - A large Jet Postal installation is in the Welcome Center. It is needed for the many Businesses and serves numerous cross-connections (for the huge web) of the Pneumo mail system, to other parts of Rapture. This Station includes one of the 'Storing and Forwarding' systems useful to the many busy people, who could have their mail forwarded to them in any part of the City. --- As mentioned, numerous immigrant 'Welcome' facilities existed in this building cluster, filling many of the floors and buildings adjacent to the path we traverse. New Immigrants have many things that need to be arranged, with their entire lives being transplanted into Rapture. With the bulk of ~20000 to ~40000 people being brought in over a span of about 4 years, that would be about 200 per week (likely in bunches of that size, simultaneously from the individual ships). Moving them and their possessions, and setting up their new lives, would require alot of organized work. When immigration largely ceased (~1952), other commercial operations would move in to 'The Welcome Center', into repurposed space in the still well-connected, up-scale locale. --- A big section of filler (on floor level 0) is my "Rapture Product Showcase", where displays of goods for sale in Rapture could be seen (and no doubt with ready salesmen there). New immigrants may not have brought all the possessions they might have preferred, and this would be the first place they could view things they might want. --- Creepy would have been Charley and Brenda's kitchen with a human body ready for filleting... (finger foods - literally) --- --- --- --- Observations : When you get your first Plasmid, how did the Splicers and BD+LS get in there if that Securis Door (you are supposed to free with ElectroBolt) was jammed up ?? So there must have been additional paths (as seen on my maps). --- SO much Green-Color marked (indicating areas NOT seen, but hinted at as interior spaces) -- alot of adjacent buildings are seen through windows (with THEIR implied interiors). --- The pillar in the center of the Visitor Lounge is a bit odd, as they have separated metal girders, a design I don't recall seeing anywhere else in the game. (But with alot more looking about, you do find them in various places if you look close enough.) --- Those Securis Doors are not shown to be really as 'secure' as they would need to be. Ditto for the glass Viaducts, which are supposed to be built sturdy enough to keep out something like 280 psi (pounds per square inch) water pressure, which seemed TOO easily sliced into by a piece of aluminum airplane fuselage drifting down thru water. Seriously they would (have to) have engineered much better than that, or failures would have destroyed Rapture years previous. BTW - The Plane Tail Section (which crashes into the Viaduct in front of us) appears to come slewing through the Bistro/Finley signed building on its coincidental path directly towards you. It also sure took its time coming down, as we were supposedly unconscious for quite a while with ADAM-shock, while troops of Splicers and BD+LS paraded by. --- Fontaine/Atlas's lies start real early : He sent his lackey 'Johnny' to get you (and he gets there) and even a Security Flybot to save you from a Splicer, but then shortly after that Atlas is laying on his 'my family is trapped' BS, and says (cue the tragic themed music - rather leading, isn't it ?) the "Splicers have cut him off". For some reason HE can't do what he is asking you (who are some unarmed, newbie, know-nothing) to do. If you weren't so disoriented and (game) ignorant when you start playing the game, you might quickly start seeing what a charade it all was (and wouldn't that be a more interesting psychodrama - where YOU don't trust Atlas almost from the start -- it WOULD be a bit different IF in the background right-from-the-first you heard the song "There's a Sucker Born Every Minute" playing ...). Shortly after that, after you 'off the lady talking to the revolver in the baby carriage, Atlas starts telling you how 'EVERYONE' (and using the word 'WE') is crazy and warped by ADAM - but why should you then Trust him or anything HE tells you ??? But we are given NO choice. HE seems to see exactly what's happening to you, and always can 'try to' work controls "from here" to help you (but for some reason he's making YOU (an ignorant unarmed newbie) do all the work. --- Proper Lighthouse scene when Jack arrives : Earlier Citizens who managed to take the Bathysphere up to the Lighthouse got out and then ??? The nearest land is 300+ miles away across a freezing ocean. The supply boats don't come any more. The short ranged Bathyspheres only go back and forth between the Lighthouse and the Welcome Center dock (and aren't really submarines anyway). The people who thought to escape are stuck. The Bathyspheres suddenly resubmerge, called back by the system to Welcome Center for more people who are trampling each other, thinking they are escaping. Anyone not quick enough/unlucky falls in the freezing water. Jack, when he arrives, is met inside the Lighthouse by pathetic piles of skeletons/bones, some obviously well gnawed. There is evidence of some attempts to light fires (using wads of Ryan dollars) and to build shelter. Piles of useless luggage is left forlorn and abandoned or as ashes. There are signs of past struggles, apparently of new 'escapees' rising to the surface and being seized by the starving people already there and being dismembered. An Audio Diary contains screams and someone yelling "Damn You Atlas!!" and "Nooooooooo!!!!". Isn't it a good thing that after that Ryan locked down that Bathyspheres ? --- A Defect is visible from viaduct - the Support for 'Visitor Lounge' building is obviously missing (underneath), with floating rocks and no extension of the building underneath (as seen with most other buildings) ... merely sloppy. --- The gold/brassy inlaid floor tiles reflecting the few lights in the darkened areas is a nice effect. --- As mentioned elsewhere, some of those big signs on buildings do NOT necessarily indicating the named locations are right there, but instead are advertisements placed in a high-traffic venue (example- "Fleet Hall" is across Rapture at Fort Frolic ). --- "AD IDEM" (seen just above the portal the Bathysphere enters arriving at Welcome Center) - law : 'in agreement' or 'at a meeting of minds on a point'. --- That's One Fricken Big Revolver in that Baby Carriage. No wonder it is in a baby carriage as it is so huge that Splicer probably couldn't pick it up... It seriously did not need to be that large since it was all glowey, and the crazy lady Splicer did everything but point at it and say "THERE IT IS!!!" Atlas starts saying how bad Rapture has gotten (people going violently crazy, etc..), but it might not have been quite as bad as he makes it. HE has to vilify Ryan, and we KNOW later he is a liar, so now we might question how much any of it was true (and look for the truth elsewhere). We likely went through unstable areas, or else we would have run either into Ryan's organized security, or some of Rapture's still normal people, who would have exposed Atlas/Fontaine's lie almost immediately (as well as be extremely dangerous for him). --- You might notice that many of the map's major doors (pressure-safe Securis) connected to the Viaducts are arranged as a double door set, which would be done for added safety. Elsewhere I've elaborated upon the design where the Securis-type doors, when they open and close for us, are only opening (2) lighter outer cosmetic doors. If a catastrophic leak event occurs, a very thick/heavy safety door is driven into place between the lighter ones and would lock. Opening and closing such thick doors constantly (and quickly) would be wasteful (expensive) and a maintenance headache, as well as increasing the risk of their malfunction, which could lead to half a building being quickly flooded and numerous citizens being drowned. --- Those big hatches we see in the Bathysphere Dock (the one we arrive through is open and the other closed), should really only be used for emergency closures. There should be sets of airlock doors below (in the water tube) which the Bathysphere passes through for normal transit (operating with a much faster/simpler sliding mechanism). The big 'hatches' (it is NOT the greatest design - and is certainly missing the actuators) would be a redundant system normally left open. The other dock there appears to be damaged, so that hatch is closed. We didn't see a second approach path parallel to the way we came into the building from the ocean (there should have been a second one to have the whole second mechanism to handle the traffic and for the Cableway system to be more failure resistant). --- Various Office space in the Rapture Welcome Center would likely have been available and repurposed when the City's immigration ceased around 1952. The real estate close to the Transit Hub, being central and well connected, would see alot of important companies having offices there. --- The Bathyspheres are not very large (~ 12 ft across) and (all the ones we saw) look to be outfitted for passengers. Immigrant's luggage and possessions would come down from the ships some other way. A freight dock at the Lighthouse would be logical to handle all of it, and likely ship it down another route (an AE Train Station ?? and a descending track, or another CableWay ?) directly to a warehouse complex, where the stuff would wait til the immigrants arranged their Rapture residences/businesses to ship it all to. It is likely this freight would be prepackaged/containerized before the ships left port to simplify operations on arriving at Rapture. --- Atlas : "Now You've Met Andrew Ryan..." : Try to re-envision it as bit like : Some punk who just shot up part of a small town being cornered and facing the no-nonsense Sheriff, who is asking "Why did a shit like you come to my town ?". Ryan could have killed Jack (you) at virtually any point in the game, but didn't, which might be a clue that he already knew who/what you were, and was 'playing' Atlas with his OWN pawn (a far better 'Twist' for the story THAT would have been). --- Those TV thingees in the (level exit) room at the Airlock. So many TVs (12 Monkeys ?) - Seriously how long do people have to wait there to transit though the airlock to Medical Center ? The airlocks cycle time isn't THAT long (it is not like the Bathyspheres or the AE Trains you have to wait a while for). It would be logical to have those kind of airlocks to contain catastrophic leaks, and to act as a flexible links between segments of buildings to handle minor geological instability of the seabed. Later-built sections could have more open "Emergency Doors", which normally stayed open to allow free flow of people through them. The security gates and airlock doors had automatic mechanisms (auto-close on airlocks makes sense when pressure leak detected.) Why Atlas somehow has remote control of some of them is plot candy. --- That monolithic block sitting on the seabed just outside the curved window (surrounding Atlas + World statue) in The Kashmir - ruins the perfectly good view of the flat building side immediately beyond it. Also Kashmirs is nothing like the monstrous (RetCon) open tower overdone in Infinite-contaminated BaS. The monolith is at a odd angle to that adjacent building, and isn't attached to Kashmir (might've served to buttress that huge window surface otherwise, or as a Art Deco decorative 'tower'). That adjacent building - I have moved it a bit further away (being only 15 feet it was all just too cluttered/mashed together, and it is a under-sized caricature). Solution was to make that big block the "Kashmir Obelisk", which sticks way up above the surrounding buildings, and would have the "Kashmir" name in huge lighted letters. Made of concrete, it is alot less ridiculous than the 70+ foot monstrous bronzey statue the BaS version showed. Much more affordable (Its a fricken restaurant, which would spend its money on whats INSIDE, and NOT on what would be barely seen outside), and Brenda and Charlie aren't likely to be millionaires to waste money that way). --- The Welcome Center is just one of many clusters of buildings in Rapture, and you might think 'How did all that possibly get built ?' : Consider - Ryan's surface empire constructed large industrial (including underwater) projects, and he had recently made advances in construction automation (hinted at in the Novel). Most of Rapture is built out of mass-produced Concrete, and large building sections were prefabricated with industrial efficiency. Finally, most of Welcome Center (and the other City areas we later visit) are rather Squat buildings, only a few stories high (despite all those wondrous views of tall building we see thru the ocean windows). --- In the Foot Light Theater, if you don't descend down the stairs (try to watch the little 'scene' with the LS + Splicer + BD from the balcony viewpoint), the Little Sister will only go as far as to stand there sticking its ADAM extractor repeatedly into the dead Splicer, doing it over and over til doomsday. Your Choreographed traversal of the light-supports has a gap you should be able to go through and jump down from. But since that doesn't match the scripted scene, your basic game mechanics are blocked for the duration. Forced limitations are necessary with the game's limited scripting, but at least they could have had the terrain give you a reason not to be able to pass (ie- block it properly). - "Pick Your Plasmid and Evolve" - seen in the Visitor Lounge (where you get your first Plasmid). This indicates that the complex was still in-use in significant ways -- because the whole ADAM thing largely happened years AFTER the city was cutoff (~1952), and immigration from the Surface had long stopped. The facilities which would have been used for that purpose (processing 200+ shiploads of 100-200 (?) people coming in with all their possessions and businesses and placement needs). That advertisement looks more 'Ryan-ish' versus 'Fontaine-ish', so might imply being this later period (or an indicator that Fontaine didn't have the ADAM monopoly that sometimes is implied in the 'narrative' -- so cutting Fontaine's game-exaggerated profits, due to ADAM business competition existing). That balcony, where the first Gatherers Garden machine is, is rather vacant for some reason. Shouldn't it be covered with advertisements for ALL the many Tonics/Plasmid available by that time (there were ALOT of them)?? - After the Plane tail crashes, and you head forward to the next building, another Viaduct ahead explodes -- not exactly what happens if it was damaged (plane tail really didn't even get close to it) and implodes (the lightweight plane part would bounce off anyway. Seriously, the Viaducts Have To Be engineered strong enough to be safe against the massive ocean water pressure at that depth). IT Looked like explosives - Atlas making sure you went the right way ?? (and not towards some people/places who might tell you what a fink/monster he was ??). Meh, its a choreographed cliche, thought up simply for visual effect, versus it being cohesive logical storytelling. --- --- --- --- --- . .